A Dictionary of Dichotomy
by NokomisKrys
Summary: John and Sherlock, Sherlock and John; a thing of existential symbiosis.


**a·bridge**

**/əˈbrij/**

All those unnecessary moments when John was sipping tea and Sherlock was complaining about boring cases and stupid criminals and genius nobodies. How unneeded, when instead they could be talking, to each other, about how the earth really did revolve around the sun just like John revolved only around Sherlock. Just for Sherlock. Always for Sherlock.

**ad·vo·cate**

**/advəkit/**

They were to each other, supporters and believers, when the media printed _confirmed bachelor consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes,_ and John was so perplexed. Sherlock calmed him down by making sugared tea - "How do you _drink_ it bland, John?" - and biscuits - or was that Mrs. Hudson? John could never remember, not when he was enveloped by the doubt that maybe Sherlock knew.

Everyone else did.

**al·lude**

**/əˈlo͞od/**

To run away from the question. "Sherlock, I was thinking, maybe we shouldn't go out together everywhere. Take different cabs, things like that, eh? What do you think?"

In shorthand, _they think I'm with you and I think I'm with you but you don't so we need to do something about it._

And the short references. "Why are you suddenly worried about what they think of me?" Ah, the moment of revelation that Sherlock had at least five _fucking_ million times a day. "You doubt it too, don't you, John? That's what Moriarty is doing, creeping under everyone's skin and planting that niggling doubt, what if, what if - ?"

"That's not it." John didn't tell him what _was_ it. _I care about you. I want to find Moriarty, kill him with my own bare hands._ "Sherlock, I don't want the world believing you're - "

"I'm _what_?" A deep breath from both parties. "Why do you care so much?"

Yet another thing John didn't know.

**at·tach·ment**

**/əˈtaCHmənt/**

Sherlock to his cases, John to Sherlock.

**awk·ward**

**/ôkwərd/**

What everybody else assumed. What Mrs. Hudson assumed (well, what she partly knew) about John and Sherlock, Sherlock and John.

"We're acquaintances."

Read: friends.

Too embarrassing to state but Sherlock found himself a friend, and John found himself a reason to eat again.

**bale·ful**

**/bālfəl/**

"Don't you dare, Sherlock."

When Sherlock fell, and all John could see was red, all he could feel was anger. _Don't you dare_, but Sherlock dared, and he was gone, and John was left to live in the flat that was once 99% Sherlock, 1% dissected human bodies. John now made up the dust and ash and tears.

**be·siege**

**/biˈsēj/**

When John found Sherlock (or was it the other way around?) for the very first time.

"How did you know all of that? All that stuff about... Harry, and Afghanistan?"

It was brilliant, John thought so, and Sherlock wasn't used to taking compliments. Big, baby blue eyes and _oh!_ so many barriers that could be deliciously broken down, one by one.

Sherlock was just an army front with all those tells that only John could pick up on.

**bo·na fide**

**/bōnə ˌfīd,ˈbänə/**

The relationship. (Friendship?) The nights when they shared the couch - reading, of course, not sleeping - with their elbows touching and lips moving, muttering out loud.

"Sherlock maybe - "

"I thought so too, John, but you see - "

And they communicated that way, genuine and honest and heartwarming to John, but it was all transport to Sherlock. Got him from here to there, John and his words and his concern and his voice, yet somehow after long enough transport became the most important thing there was.

**bour·geois**

**/bo͝orˈZHwä,ˈbo͝orZHwä/**

Greg Lestrade, in Sherlock's point of view. So stuck up, couldn't see down his nose, so _stupid_ (much like John, really, but not always).

John was more.

**by·gone**

**/bīˌgôn/**

The days when Sherlock would eat occasional meals and sleep at night. Now it was just violin music and case solving, like the end was near and Sherlock needed to do enough with his life before he could do nothing in his death.

**car·di·gan**

**/kärdigən/**

The most endearing thing Sherlock found about John. That's why he always told him not to wear it - "Take it _off_, John, you're a _veteran_," - because Sherlock was not fond of feeling affection, attachment, or of feeling at all.

John didn't know, so Sherlock's words made him upset. _Upset_, but not angry, because John cherished everything that Sherlock didn't (possibly couldn't) and maybe the way John looked was just interfering with the case yet John didn't change.

Stability, John uncovered, was the only thing Sherlock ever needed.

**chum**

**/CHəm/**

_He's an acquaintance. _  
Read: friend.

**claim  
****/klām/****  
**All of Sherlock's stuff in boxes. John comes home, fuming, "What the hell is going on?"

Excuses. Taking it in, sweeping, searching… They've been proved wrong and still they believe they're right.

"He. Was. Not. A. Fraud." A deep breath. "He _is_ not a fraud." Snickers from the uniformed men. "Where's Lestrade?"

Greg apologizes - not his fault, staff acting on spite, et cetera - and the police go. Sherlock's stuff, still in the boxes. "He left it all to you," his lawyer had said. John sits there among the boxes and wills his lungs to stop breathing, his heart to stop beating, his brain to stop feeling.

To die.

Once again, it doesn't work.

**codeine  
****/ˈkōˌdēn/****  
**There are things John doesn't tell Sherlock in the few weeks after their first case. Sherlock is now his reason to live and believe and run. Sherlock is why John's painkillers are left untouched by the bathroom sink. Sherlock makes him smile before he crawls into bed, gun in hand, mind not yet at peace.

The psychosomatic limp is gone, the pain in his soldier is dulled, and yet sometimes he wakes up in the middle of night and dawn to find his heart aching.

And John finds that there are no painkillers for that.

**consummate  
****/ˈkänsəˌmāt/****  
**John nearly dies by bullet, but he doesn't, and when he wakes up in a _damn_ hospital bed Sherlock is beside him, taking his pulse. Then Sherlock's face is within an inch of his and when John breathes in - in order to stay alive, one must carry out the tedious task of breathing - all he can smell are whirring thoughts.

Sherlock is thinking, then.

"Consummation," says Sherlock in a simple manner. "Consummation gave him away."

"Sherlock - " John's brain is fogged with morphine. "What…?"

"So you know who did it?" Lestrade. John's eyes move around. Yes, Lestrade, at the door, facing them and Mycroft at his back, facing the other way.

Sherlock's thinking about the case, then.

"Consummation, John," repeats Sherlock, his face still dangerously close to John's. John strains backwards and Sherlock gets the message, leaning away and pacing, muttering, mumbling…

"Fancy way of saying sex," Lestrade supplies from the door, obviously to help John's mind onto the right path.

Involuntarily, for he knows it's all related to the case and yet involuntary actions can never be prevented, John's face flushes with colour. Sherlock turns to him, a curious frown on his face. "We need a consummate," Sherlock declares.

More blushing. "_What?_"

"A skilled professional, John," Sherlock, impatient, hint of a smirk… "Keep up, will you?"

"Can you not - " Pause. Under the breath - "Sod."

**convalescence  
****/känvəˈlesəns/****  
**Sherlock dies and leaves nobody to pick up the pieces.

First John is lost, heaving, breaking and crying and needing. The withdrawal symptoms, Molly calls them.

Then John is remembering, leafing through his books and bringing him up in conversations.

This is the convalescence. The recovery.

**cumulative  
****/ˈkyo͞omyələtiv,-ˌlātiv/****  
**John wouldn't have noticed but Sherlock was trying. First Sherlock was dead, and then he wasn't, and while the hows and wheres of his hoax were clear to himself, it would occasionally cross his radar that John was rather confused by it all.

'Angry' actually was the more accurate term.

But that didn't mean Sherlock wasn't trying. Whenever John stopped by, he put all visible dissections of the human anatomy into the fridge (or under the table) (or on the bed). He dusted regularly, opened the windows more, _ate_ more.

John noticed, but to John this wasn't enough. Sherlock was doing what John always wanted him to do but now he wanted different things.

And Sherlock did none of those.

**cystic fibrosis  
****/ˈsistik fīˈbrōsəs/****  
**_Surely_ this was why John's breath caught in his throat when Sherlock occasionally pulled off his shirt out of boredom. And when he's lean down, all bear skin and body warmth, breathing into John's ear as he watched him score the news online for cases.

"No, no, not that tone, nope, boring, it was obviously his wife…" Words Sherlock said that sounded more like whispers to John, making the latter wonder if Sherlock felt it too.

He was sure the detective would just dismiss it as sentiment even if he did. Yet there were moments in the wee hours of the morning when they were working on a case and Sherlock would just look at him, his breathing hard, his eyes dark.

**deadpan  
****/ˈdedˌpan/****  
**John had taken to using a built-in self defense mechanism of self-demeaning humour before he met Sherlock. The sarcasm got worse, but occasionally his chest bloomed with so much affection for Sherlock he forgot to hate himself.

**derby  
****/ˈdərbē/****  
**They have a wager that ends in a kiss. This is before Sherlock dies, and all John has ever felt for the man is admiration.

John pulls away first.

**dichotomy  
****/dīˈkätəmē/****  
**John and Sherlock. Sherlock and John. They become a thing of existential symbiosis, taking and giving and living off each other. There are tussles and full-blown yelling matches followed by Sherlock playing furious Vivaldi on his bow and string late into the night.

There are days Sherlock doesn't sleep at all, and at odd hours of dawn and dusk he opens the door to John's bedroom to watch the veteran sleep, his restless mind only finding peace when he watches John's chest rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall…

Sherlock's mind, John realizes three months after they first met, is a spider web, and John is trapped. He's been exploring the way the web works and realizes he, John, ist he only person who can get the web to stop whirring from time to time.

John does not understand, but Sherlock does. They are too different to be friends and too similar to be more. What's left is the in between.

_He's my acquaintance. We're flatmates.  
Chum.  
_Read: friend.

**divisive  
****/diˈvīsiv/****  
**The Woman. John is unsettled when she appears, he's jealous and angry and doesn't understand. Sherlock sees this all but doesn't know how to reassure him. She's messing with his head, driving him to the edge and Sherlock knows John misunderstands, thinks that all the tension is chemistrian lust.

_I don't want her._

Sherlock solves the case and the gap that wedged itself between Sherlock and John slowly begins diminishing until Sherlock can put his finger on John's shoulder without the other man stiffening up. And one day John kisses the top of Sherlock's head in a bout of after-case euphoria and Sherlock is left there, body red, thinking -

_John?_

And then -

_I love you I love you I love you I love you_

**dysfunctional  
****/disˈfəNGkSHənl/****  
**_I love you_

**elementary  
****/ˌeləˈment(ə)rē/****  
**They were always in a relationship of sorts, weren't they?

**escapism  
****/iˈskāpˌizəm/****  
**Mary, with her bright eyes and exuberant voice, who helped his heart to forget for at least a little while the only one it ever did work for.

Mary, John knows, is a distraction.

**exquisite  
****/ekˈskwizit,ˈekskwizit/****  
**John's eyes, his hair, the nape of his neck, the crook of his elbow, the dimples by his lips, oh, his lips, the way he runs his tongue over them…

Sherlock has stopped observing, and started seeing.

**fertile  
****/ˈfərtl/****  
**John realizes that not only is Sherlock's mind a web, but it's also a very unusual place full of very unusual thoughts.

**fib  
****/fib/****  
**_"I want you to tell Lestrade, I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson and Molly. In fact, tell anyone who will listen to you. That I created Moriarty for my own purposes.__"_

**flutter  
****/ˈflətər/****  
**"Why are you saying this?"

Sherlock's heart - it's hurting and bleeding and aching.

**forwent  
****/fôrˈwent/****  
**His freedom, when he decided to move in with Sherlock - a choice he expected to regret immediately but never eventually did.

**fringe benefit  
/****frinj ˈbenəfit/****  
**After the case with the hounds, an odd contact of skin here and there, elbows bumping, fingers on shoulders.

Then one day, Sherlock makes him coffee and John looks at him, cheeks red, lips parted.

**gateau  
****/gäˈtō,ga-/****  
**Sherlock was babbling about cakes, chocolate and cream, vanilla essence, frosted flowers, and Mary was babbling about invitations and seating arrangements and all John really wanted was a fresh new case and a stag night with Sherlock.

**go  
****/gō/**  
Sherlock, walking away from the wedding, turning his collar up, lips in a straight line, frown between eyebrows.  
_I loved you first._

**home  
****/hōm/**

John and Sherlock, Sherlock and John, a thing of existential symbiosis.

**hush  
****/həSH/**

"Will you back me up on this case?"

"But Sherlock, today's our anniversa - "

"Will you, John?"

"I can't very well bail on my anniversary dinner for a _case_, Sherlock."

A pause. Blue eyes stare into brown ones. Sherlock's underlying question is far too clear.

_Me or her?_

"I can't, Sherlock. I'm sorry."

**itinerant  
****/īˈtinərənt,iˈtin-/**

Sherlock leaves, goes to Paris and India and Australia, looking for cases and remarkable criminals, but also unconsciously looking for companionship. He finds no one. Or, rather, he finds lots of people, but he finds no Johns.

**laissez-faire  
****/lesā ˈfe(ə)r,ˌlezā/**

Stops trying.

**PM  
/PM/**

"Sherlock? Hey, it's me. I'm outside 221 B. Will you let me in? Sorry for the late call, but I'm counting on the fact that your sleep habits haven't - "

"Shut up, John. I'm on my way."

**quote  
****/kwōt/**

"I told you so."

"I'm sorry, but I don't quite recall you telling me particularly that Mary was going to cheat on me with a sod at her workplace _fourteen months_ after our marriage."

"I mentioned something along those lines, John. Don't argue with me."

"You said she didn't suit me."

"No, I said she didn't deserve you."

**ripple effect  
****/ˈripəl iˈfekt/**

"You'll move back in, yes?"

And this time there's something different, something new, something John didn't expect. Tenderness: Sherlock making him tea every morning. Consideration: no violin-playing after 4AM. Protectiveness: "Bugger off, Donovan. John's got enough going on without you breathing down his neck."

John knows he shouldn't revel in this; he's always known Sherlock cares, but to the extent that he would show it unashamedly? It's scary. It scares John. It exhilarates him, yes, because Sherlock _cares_, but it scares him as well.

**routine  
****/ro͞oˈtēn/**

John and Sherlock: everyday, never changing, indefinite.

**rusty  
****/ˈrəstē/**

There are flaws in the conversation. Odd things that might remind John of Mary, and then a lull in speech on Sherlock's behalf as they both cautiously skirt tricky territory. The divorce isn't final yet, no, and this irritates Sherlock, but he isn't sure why.

Three years ago he'd have regarded this with cold indifference, but he had come to realize that that didn't bode well with John, and all of a sudden that was all that mattered.

**sanguine  
****/ˈsaNGgwin/**

Molly and What's-his-name get engaged, and by default Sherlock and John are invited to the party. Of course Sherlock doesn't plan on going, but through a series of rather unfortunate events including (but not limited to) a particularly vicious blackmail on John's part, he finds himself in yet another tuxedo at yet another dinner hall, surrounded by waiters (two cross-dressers, one single father) holding platters of tequila shots and crab sticks.

John's right next to him, as he always is, and first Sherlock anticipated a negative reaction from John given the situation (engagement, wedding, marriage, Mary) but the veteran is pleasant and reasonably jolly and, oddly, _optimistic._

He looks at Sherlock and grins once or twice, thrice, four times, and Sherlock can't help but think, _this could be our event_. And off with that thought, because John's still not over Mary.

_Obviously._

**survive  
****/sərˈvīv/**

Mary comes around to 221B eventually, seeking closure presumably. Sherlock gets back from the Yard to expect the two of them snogging on the couch (a thought that brings about an odd pulling of strings in the left-hand-side chest area) but instead John's home alone, and Mary is long gone.

"Issues resolved, then?" asked Sherlock mildly.

"Hm?" John hummed nonchalantly. "Filing for a divorce. Care for a spot of tea?"

**trepidation  
****/ˌtrepiˈdāSHən/**

"Thought we'd go out for dinner tonight."

"Oh?"

"Considering…"

"I'm not _sad_, Sherlock."

"You did get divorced today."

"And I've come to terms with that."

A hand on a shoulder, and a soft smile, of reassurance and something else, something raw and scared, something asking, _will you_?

"How about that dinner, yeah?"

**unseen  
****/ˌənˈsēn/**

If John thought really hard about it, Sherlock really was the only one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

**utopia  
****/yo͞oˈtōpēə/**

That moment in the middle of all the chaos, when there's acid on the floor, eating up the carpet and singing the tiles, and the microwave is beeping with - what is that - _eyeballs, Sherlock?_ and the midget of a detective looks at John with that sheepish curve of lips on his face, his eyes apologizing even when he waves his hands around in defiance, because _it's for science, John!_

**virile  
****/ˈvirəl/**

Stumbling into the flat with after-case euphoria, another spectacularly stupid (if not agile) murderer behind bars, and Sherlock's panting and John's panting and Mrs. Hudson is _surely_ going to ask questions if they pant any louder.

And before he can stop himself, Sherlock crowds John against a wall and looks at him, not deducing (new toothpaste, still hasn't called Harry), not really, just looking. Blue-green eyes. Dilated pupils. Breathlessness. _Oh._ Hands on either side of his frame, caging him between Sherlock arms, possessively. Not another Mary, no one in between this time.

And the moment's over. John pushes him away and walks, confused and dazed, up to his room, and Sherlock falls onto the couch dreaming of tension and knowing and _John._

**with  
****/wiT͟H/**

John and Sherlock.

**without  
****/wiT͟Hˈout/**

Sherlock and John.

**yes  
****/yes/**

"Will you?"

**zenith  
****/ˈzēniTH/**

There were always in a relationship of sorts, weren't they?


End file.
